Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.

To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).

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List of the most influential people in Communications,

#9501

Vladimir Landsman

#144707

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (85 years)

Vladimir Landsman is a Soviet-Canadian violinist and teacher. Biography Vladimir Landsman started to play violin at the age of five. At the age 12, following David Oistrakh's advise, he had entered the Moscow Central Music School where he studied under Yuri Yankelevich. He then studied for four years at the Merzlyakovsky College, before entering the Moscow Conservatory, where he earned an Aspirantura diploma. He became a soloist member of the Moscow Philharmonic Society, and performed with such renowned conductors as Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Evgeny Svetlanov. In 1963 he won 3rd prize in Lon...

#9502

Michael J. Levy

#181762

Overall Influence

#9503

Storm Bull

#170579

Overall Influence

1913 - 2007 (94 years)

Storm Bull was an American musician, composer and educator. He was Professor Emeritus at the College of Music, University of Colorado at Boulder and Head of the Division of Piano. Background Storm Bull, the only child of Eyvind Hagerup Bull and Agnes Hagerup Bull , was born in Chicago, Illinois . His family heritage included the musical traditions of Norway. Both of Storm's grandfathers were nephews of the Norwegian violinist Ole Bull and were also first cousins of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. In 1919, Storm Bull began his formal musical training at the Laboratory Schools of the University of Chicago, the American Conservatory of Music, and the Chicago Musical College.

#9504

Miklós Perényi

#171535

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Miklós Perényi is a Hungarian cellist. He was born in Budapest into a musical family and studied at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest with Ede Banda and Enrico Mainardi. He continued his studies at the Accademia Santa Cecilia, graduating in 1962. In 1963 he won a prize at the Pablo Casals International Violoncello Competition in Budapest.

#9505

Scherezade García

Scherezade García

#175934

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (60 years)

Scherezade García is a Dominican-born, American painter, printmaker, and installation artist. She is a co-founder of the Dominican York Proyecto GRÁFICA Collective. García is an Advisor to the Board of Directors of No Longer Empty and sits on the board of directors of the College Art Association for the period of 2020–2024. She is assistant professor of Art at the University of Texas at Austin. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York and Austin, Texas.

#9506

Michael Gandolfi

#140248

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Michael James Gandolfi is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He chairs the composition department at the New England Conservatory of Music . Gandolfi was born in Melrose, Massachusetts. He taught himself guitar as a child, studied for a year at the Berklee College of Music, and then entered NEC, where he earned his bachelor's and master's degrees.

#9507

K. V. Narayanaswamy

#153218

Overall Influence

1923 - 2002 (79 years)

Palghat Kollengode Viswanathan Narayanaswamy , often referred to as K. V. Narayanaswamy was an Indian musician, widely considered to be among the finest Carnatic music vocalists of the 20th century. He was awarded the Madras Music Academy's Sangeetha Kalanidhi in 1986. He was described as the "Perfect Knight" of Carnatic music, a phrase from Geoffrey Chaucer, by V. K. Narayana Menon, art critic of India and recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship.

#9508

Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen

#113132

Overall Influence

Bjarne Wernicke-Olesen is a Research Lecturer at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and a tutor in Hinduism, Buddhism and Sanskrit at the Faculty of Theology and Religion at Oxford University. His research interests are: Religion, Hinduism, Indic languages ; Śāktism and tantric traditions; ascetic reformism ; the Middle Ages in India and Nepal; Yoga and asceticism; Myths and rituals; the history of ideas in South Asia; religious historiography. Wernicke-Olesen is the leader of the Śākta Traditions project, an international research project with a focus on Indian religious traditions of South...

#9509

Hal Robinson

#162060

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Harold Hall Robinson is an American classical double bass player, formerly the principal bassist of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Early life and education Robinson was born in Houston, Texas, the son of Keith Robinson and Dorothe Fowler. Both parents were members of the Houston Symphony Orchestra: his father was the principal bassist, and his mother was a violinist. Hal and all four of his siblings—cellists Sharon and Keith Jr., and violinists Erica and Kim—became professional string players with notable careers.

#9510

Sam Rivers

#84434

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (49 years)

Samuel Robert Rivers is an American musician. He is the bassist and backing vocalist of the rock band Limp Bizkit and one of its founding members. Early life Rivers' musical career started fairly early on, with him playing the tuba in a band in Arlington Middle School. He got into music initially because of John Otto, who played jazz-style drums.

#9511

Elsa Cavelti

#169511

Overall Influence

1907 - 2001 (94 years)

Elsa Cavelti was a Swiss operatic contralto and mezzo-soprano, temporarily also a dramatic soprano, who worked at German and Swiss opera houses and as an international guest. She was an academic voice teacher in Frankfurt.

#9512

Leigh Howard Stevens

#138399

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (73 years)

Leigh Howard Stevens is a marimba artist best known for developing, codifying, and promoting the Stevens technique or Musser-Stevens grip, a method of independent four-mallet marimba performance based on the Musser grip.

#9513

Thomas Mohr

#174430

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (65 years)

Thomas Mohr is a German operatic tenor and academic voice teacher. He began his career as a baritone, but moved on to heldentenor and has performed roles in all tenor parts of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at Der Ring in Minden. He has appeared at major international opera houses and concert halls, and made recordings. Mohr is a professor of voice at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen. He also runs an agricultural estate where he founded a music festival.

#9514

Kristin Linklater

#134467

Overall Influence

1936 - 2020 (84 years)

Kristin Linklater was a Scottish vocal coach, acting teacher, actor, theatre director, and author. She retired from the Theatre Arts Division of Columbia University where she was professor emerita. She taught residential courses in Orkney.

#9515

Artsvi Bakhchinyan

Artsvi Bakhchinyan

#92803

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (55 years)

Artsvi Bakhchinyan is an Armenian philologist, film researcher, writer, Armenologist, and Doctor of philology. Biography Artsvi Bakhchinyan received his Diploma in Armenian Language and Literature from the Yerevan State University in 1993. He has been engaged in research on famous Armenians, Armenian art and culture for many years. Bakhchinyan published his first book, They are Armenian by origin, in 1993. The book contained concise biographies of famous Armenians who had lived and worked in foreign countries. The second, revised and completed edition of the book was published in 2002. Since ...

#9516

John Smith

#101107

Overall Influence

1931 - 1995 (64 years)

John Smith was an American actor whose career primarily focused on westerns. He had his leading roles in two NBC western television series, Cimarron City and Laramie. Early life A descendant of Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch governor of New Netherland in the 17th century, Smith was born in Los Angeles, California, to Errol and Margaret Van Orden.

#9517

Mara Mattuschka

Mara Mattuschka

#175876

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Mara Mattuschka is an Austrian avant-garde filmmaker. Life Mattuschka was born in Sofia in Bulgaria in 1959. At the age of 17, in 1976, she moved to Vienna to study Ethnology and Linguistics. In 1983, she entered Maria Lassnig's masterclass in animation and painting at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and started making her first short films. Her graduation film Der Einzug des Rokoko ins Inselreich der Huzis caused a small scandal at the university in 1989, because it mixed animation, theatre, performance, music and fine arts. She graduated in 1990. From 1997 until 2001 she taught arts at Braunschweig University of Art in Germany.

#9518

Robert Musso

#97180

Overall Influence

Robert Musso is a New York City-based guitarist, composer, engineer, and producer. He is the founder of the independent record label MuWorks as well as the record label - MussoMusic.com. Over the course of a 40 - year career, Musso has produced, mixed, remixed, played on, written, or contributed to over 2000 records, CDs, movie soundtracks, on every continent in the world except Antarctica.

#9519

Donald Covington

#113346

Overall Influence

1928 - 2002 (74 years)

Donald Covington , former Professor of Design in the Art Department of San Diego State University, taught courses in the history of architecture and design. He held an M.A. degree in Art from the University of California, Los Angeles.

#9520

Sherry Farrell Racette

#131211

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (74 years)

Sherry Farrell Racette is a Métis-Canadian feminist scholar, author, curator, and artist. She is best known for her contributions to Indigenous and Canadian art histories. She is currently an associate professor of Visual Arts at the University of Regina.

#9521

Lisa Coleman

#129516

Overall Influence

1970 - Present (56 years)

Lisa Jacqueline Coleman is an English actress best known for her television roles as Jude Korcanik in Casualty and Cam Lawson in The Story of Tracy Beaker . Coleman reprised the role in Tracy Beaker Returns , My Mum Tracy Beaker and The Beaker Girls .

#9522

James Wilson

#168710

Overall Influence

1922 - 2005 (83 years)

James Wilson was an Irish composer. Though born in England, Wilson was a resident of Ireland for over 50 years. Early life Wilson was born in Islington, London. His father, a chemist, died when James was only four days old, leaving his widowed mother to bring up three sons alone. Without any family background in music , Wilson began piano lessons in 1931 , continuing them until 1938. While in his early teens, Wilson attended many operas which fostered his interest in music.

#9523

Mike Clark

#128010

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (80 years)

#9524

John Marcellus

#174189

Overall Influence

John Marcellus is a trombone musician and teacher. He was Professor of Trombone at the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, and past Chair of the Woodwind, Brass, and Percussion Department. In addition to his trombone teaching responsibilities at Eastman, Dr. Marcellus was the conductor of the Eastman Trombone Choir, Eastman Bionic Bones , and the trombonist with the Eastman Brass. Dr. Marcellus joined the faculty of the Eastman School in 1978, and was named the Kilbourn Professor from 1982-83. He succeeded the trombonist and teacher, Emory Remington, who served as Professor of Trombone at Eastman close to 50 years.

#9525

Franka Rasmussen

#154539

Overall Influence

1907 - 1994 (87 years)

Franziska Paula Konstante Rasmussen née Duden was a German-born textile artist and painter who moved to Denmark in 1930. Initially influenced by the minimalist Bauhaus style, she soon developed her own distinctive Structuralist approach to weaving, becoming one of Denmark's most important contributors to tapestry. In 1935, she joined the Danish School of Arts and Crafts where she remained for over 40 years, teaching painting and composition, increasingly with an emphasis on textile art.

#9526

Denise van Outen

Denise van Outen

#168172

Overall Influence

1974 - Present (52 years)

Denise van Outen is an English actress, singer, dancer and presenter. She presented The Big Breakfast, played Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago both in the West End and on Broadway and finished as runner-up in the tenth series of the BBC One dancing show Strictly Come Dancing.

#9527

John Wilson

#157374

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (79 years)

John Wilson is a Northern Irish musician. He has had a prolific career, playing drums with bands such as Them, Taste and Stud. Previously with 'The Misfits', Wilson became a member of one of the numerous line-ups of Them from September 1965 to March 1966. Alongside Van Morrison, Alan Henderson, Jim Armstrong and Ray Elliott, Wilson played on recording sessions for Them's second album Them Again . Visa restrictions meant that he had to be substituted by stand-in drummers for initial live dates abroad, due to his youth. He was replaced by Dave Harvey upon leaving Them, and went on to work with ...

#9528

Penny Whetton

#42047

Overall Influence

1958 - 2019 (61 years)

Penelope Whetton was a climatologist and an expert in regional climate change projections due to global warming and in the impacts of those changes. Her primary scientific focus was Australia. Early life Whetton was born in Melbourne, Victoria, on 5 January 1958. She held a Bachelor of Science , majoring in physics, and an honours year in meteorology, from the University of Melbourne. She received a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the same university in 1986.

#9529

Edward Applebaum

#174230

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Edward Applebaum was an American composer of contemporary classical music. Born in Los Angeles, United States of America, Applebaum began his career as a jazz pianist and conductor. He received a B.A. , M.A. , and Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, and also studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm, Sweden. His primary teachers were Henri Lazarof and Lukas Foss. In Sweden, he also studied with Ingvar Lidholm.

#9530

William Cole

#173241

Overall Influence

1909 - 1997 (88 years)

William Charles Cole LVO, DMus, FSA, FRAM, FRCM, FRCO was an English conductor, composer and organist. Cole went to Saint Olave's Grammar School, where he in fact almost lost his scholarship there because 'his music was getting in the way of his studies'. He also studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he won the Stewart Macpherson Prize in 1933. His appointment in 1930 as organist at St Martin's Church, Dorking and music master at Dorking County School a year later, led to his conducting local choirs at the neighbouring Leith Hill Musical Festival, founded by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

#9531

Bobby Troup

#147975

Overall Influence

1918 - 1999 (81 years)

Robert William Troup Jr. was an American actor, jazz pianist, singer, and songwriter. He wrote the song "Route 66" and acted in the role of Dr. Joe Early with his wife Julie London in the television program Emergency! in the 1970s.

#9532

Janet Lilly

#101029

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Janet Lilly is an American modern dancer and choreographer. She was a principal dancer for Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane's company from 1983 to 1991. She currently serves as the Director of the UNCG College of Visual and Performing Arts, School of Dance at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. From 2012 to 2014 she was the president of the Board of Directors of Iyengar Yoga National United States Association.

#9533

Hans Richter

#162271

Overall Influence

1919 - 2008 (89 years)

Hans Richter was a German film actor. He appeared in more than 130 films between 1931 and 1984, mostly in supporting roles. He was born in Brandenburg, Germany and died in Heppenheim, Germany. Life and career Hans Richter made his film debut as "Fliegender Hirsch" in Gerhard Lamprecht's Emil and the Detectives , based on the novel of the same name by Erich Kästner. In the following years, Richter become a popular juvenile actor; often playing clever, somewhat cheeky boys . When he reached legal age, he had appeared in over 50 films. After his supporting role as a lazy schoolboy in Die Feuerza...

#9534

Vincent de Jesus

#173277

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (58 years)

Vincent Abenojar De Jesus is a Filipino composer, librettist, musical scorer, and musical director for theater, television, and film. He is also a writer, lyricist, actor, singer, and educator. He attended the University of the Philippines Diliman College of Music, and majored in piano and voice. He was a member of the Philippine Educational Theater Association from 1983 to 2020.

#9535

Carol Lawrence

#147599

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (94 years)

Carol Lawrence is an American actress, appearing in musical theatre and on television. She is known for creating the role of Maria on Broadway in the musical West Side Story , receiving a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. She appeared at The Muny, St. Louis, in several musicals, including Funny Girl. She also appeared in many television dramas, including Rawhide, The Six Million Dollar Man and Murder She Wrote. She was married to fellow performer Robert Goulet.

#9536

Jerry Fuller

#104829

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (88 years)

Jerry Fuller is an American songwriter, singer and record producer. Biography Jerry Fuller was born in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, to a musical family. He and his brother Bill performed as a duo in their home state, recording for the local Lin label, before Jerry branched out on his own and began writing his own material. In 1959, he moved to Los Angeles, California, and secured a performing contract with Challenge Records. His rockabilly version of "Tennessee Waltz" made No. 63 on the Billboard Hot 100, and earned him an invitation to appear on American Bandstand.

#9537

Laurie Hays

#137821

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Laurie Hays is an American journalist at Bloomberg News, where she currently serves as senior executive editor for beat reporting. Prior to joining Bloomberg, Hays worked at The Wall Street Journal for 23 years as a reporter, Moscow correspondent, and editor, and she worked on a team that won a 2003 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting on corporate corruption scandals.

#9538

Kai Wessel

#170002

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (62 years)

Kai Wessel is a German countertenor and teacher at the Hochschule für Musik Köln. Professional career Kai Wessel started singing in school choirs and as a boy soprano at the Christus-Kirche of Hamburg-Wandsbek and received lessons on piano, organ and oboe. He studied to become a composer at the Lübeck Academy of Music but then concentrated on training his countertenor voice with Ute von Garczynski. He studied baroque performance practice at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with René Jacobs.

#9539

Peter Davis

#132220

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (89 years)

Peter Frank Davis , is an American filmmaker, author, novelist and journalist. His film Hearts and Minds, about American military action in Vietnam, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1974.

#9540

Orbert Davis

#130082

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (66 years)

Orbert C. Davis is an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader. Biography Davis was born in Chicago and raised in Momence, Illinois. He began playing trumpet around the age of ten, but was not formally instructed until Charles Danish, an elementary school teacher, found him a trumpet teacher and drove him to lessons. He graduated with a degree in trumpet performance from DePaul University, then received a master's degree in jazz pedagogy from Northwestern University. Davis is Associate Professor of music at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

#9541

Annie Ross

#165585

Overall Influence

1930 - 2020 (90 years)

Annabelle McCauley Allan Short , known professionally as Annie Ross, was a British-American singer and actress, best known as a member of the jazz vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross. Early life Ross was born in Surrey, England, the daughter of Scottish vaudevillians John "Jack" Short and Mary Dalziel Short . Her brother was Scottish entertainer and theatre producer and director Jimmy Logan. She first appeared on stage at age three. At the age of four, she travelled to New York by ship with her family; she later recalled that they "got the cheapest ticket, which was right in the bowels of the...

#9542

Hendrik Hofmeyr

#161813

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (69 years)

Hendrik Pienaar Hofmeyr is a South African composer. Born in Cape Town, he furthered his studies in Italy during 10 years of self-imposed exile as a conscientious objector. While there, he won the South African Opera Competition with The Fall of the House of Usher. He also received the annual Nederburg Prize for Opera for this work subsequent to its performance at the State Theatre in Pretoria in 1988. In the same year, he obtained first prize in an international competition in Italy with music for a short film by Wim Wenders. He returned to South Africa in 1992, and in 1997 won two major int...

#9543

Janet Watson

#172059

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (67 years)

Janet Constance Elizabeth Watson is a linguist and phonologist. She is Professor in the School of Languages, Cultures, and Societies at the University of Leeds. Biography Watson studied Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter before undertaking her PhD in Linguistics at the SOAS University of London.

#9544

Monty Budwig

#157121

Overall Influence

1926 - 1992 (66 years)

Monte Rex Budwig was a West Coast jazz double bassist, professionally known as Monty Budwig. Early life Monte Rex Budwig was born in Pender, Nebraska, on December 26, 1929. His parents were musical. He began playing bass during high school, and continued in military bands while he was enlisted in the Air Force for three years.

#9545

Harvey Sussman

#182032

Overall Influence

Harvey M. Sussman is an American linguist and professor of linguistics at University of Texas at Austin. He is known for his research on speech production, speech perception, language and the brain, and neurolinguistics. Sussman has received the Editors' Award , Teaching Excellence award and College of Communication Research Award.

#9546

Crystal Kay

#150400

Overall Influence

1986 - Present (40 years)

is a Japanese-American singer, songwriter, actress and radio host. After releasing her first single, "Eternal Memories" , Crystal Kay gained fame for her third studio album, Almost Seventeen , which debuted at number 2 on the Japanese Oricon charts. Almost Seventeen eventually sold over 400,000 copies and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of Japan. Crystal Kay, formerly signed to Epic Records, a sub-label of Sony Music Japan for 12 years, suddenly transferred to Delicious Deli Records, a sub-label of Universal Music Japan in 2011.

#9547

John Campbell

#172573

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (54 years)

#9548

Tony Conrad

#137014

Overall Influence

1940 - 2016 (76 years)

Anthony Schmalz Conrad was an American video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of both drone music and structural film. As a musician, he was an important figure in the New York minimalist scene of the early 1960s, during which time he performed as part of the Theatre of Eternal Music . He became recognized as a filmmaker for his 1966 film The Flicker. He performed and collaborated with a wide range of artists over the course of his career.

#9549

Mechthild Georg

#176474

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (70 years)

Mechthild Georg is a German operatic mezzo-soprano, and a professor of voice at the Musikhochschule Köln. Career Georg studied Roman studies and history at the Cologne University, and music pedagogy at the Musikhochschule Köln. She then studied voice at the Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf with Ingeborg Reichelt. She graduated in 1982 as a concert singer, and continued studies as an opera singer. She was a member of the Cologne Opera Studio in 1982/83, and took master classes with Giulietta Simionato and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

#9550

Rudolf Kelber

#177533

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (78 years)

Rudolf Kelber is a German organist, harpsichordist, conductor and church musician. Biography Rudolf Kelber began his musical education at high school in Nuremberg State Conservatory and received instruction in piano, organ, cello and music theory. From 1967 to 1974 he studied church music, conducting and organ at the Musikhochschule in Munich.

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